Time to say Good Bye Joomla ?!#

Hello,

This is my first post at these nice forums ... well firstly .. I'm a PHP Programmer for about 3 years, recently I've entered the world of CMS .. as before I was developing my projects & client's too using my own codes (Scratch codes ) ... then with no-doubt Mambo/Joomla was my first choice as its massive support for extensions, modules etc ... when I began using Joomla .. I was very shocked to find something like that and guess what .. its free & opensource too .... after days and weeks searching, reading ...etc in joomla world ... and at the first time I'm going to build my application ... I was shocked again .. but it was a different shock!! it take me a longer time than my old way (build from scratch) to build it as I want .. I didn't believe and got more deep in .. how is that ?? its joomla .. scalable .. finally i [glow=red,2,300]found that joomla was the wrong choice[/glow] .. in short sentence i can say ... "Joomla put you in one way to go ".. [glow=red,2,300]its not open to your needs ... but your needs should be open to its rules[/glow] !!

And after deep thinking about joomla and its being free ... I've found that most of important components/modules are [glow=red,2,300]Commercial[/glow] .. yes .. this is how they do it !! .. using just joomla isn't more using normal organized application ... but to make it powerful you have to get the commercials !! whatever it was components, modules or templates ! ...

And guess what .. Joomla wasn't a piece of cake to learn ...

and now I've came up to an end which is to seek another CMS or go back to my old and own rules and build my applications from scratch ...

I hope someone can give a positive answer telling MODx is different and I could really depend on for my projects .. as i really not ready to waste time again .. sorry to say that ... but I've wasted it once ... and afraid to waste it again
Sorry for long post ...

and Thanks .

MODx is your dream come true. Do with it as you like, there are no limits or lock-ins. There's always at least two or three ways to do things.

For example, don't like copy/paste into the template form? Well, I just ran across someone who made a snippet called "Include", he puts that snippet in the template form, and specifies the name of the .php file to include as an argument. That .php file is his template, and he can edit it to his heart's content in his editor of choice. That kind of surprised me, but on the other hand, it illustrates the incredible flexibility of MODx.

Most of us have "pet" projects we're working on, from calendars to ecommerce and way beyond, all shared freely and openly discussed in the forums as we work on them. Everyone is welcome to chime in with bugs, suggestions, improvement, code, and complaints (although the latter may not be received quite as warmly ).

That's not to say that nobody will ever make modules commercially; everyone is free to do as they wish.

MODx is different. Big time.

There's about 3-4 ways to get to the same end result. It's flexible and allows you to work the way you want to work. It also runs some decently large sites. The components are highly configurable and I'm not aware of any commercial ones yet.

Oh, and everyone keeps telling me the community is as great as I consider it (and I hold it in the highest of regards)!

Background We started the MODx project out of frustration after a multi-year search for an open source CMF (Content Management Framework). We needed a solution that would allow us to quickly build clean XHTML/CSS sites and web applications (i.e., a sensible, robust and extendable API without extended learning curves), and that also worked as a great marketing-site CMS. While MODx began as an add-on hack of Etomite, we ultimately found ourselves in the "interesting" position of having to choosing between forking the project or abandoning over a thousand hours of work. We chose dinnerware.

Since then, we've significantly enhanced the API and rewritten much of the application. Our 1.0 release will launch as a ground-up rewrite from scratch, and will hit private testing before it starts regularly hitting 100-degrees F in Dallas again... probably much sooner.

Why MODx? There's a few things that people relay are part of the reason behind their choosing MODx:

* Simple templates -- build a page and replace the content parts with some simple tags. No complex template system required, and XHTML/CSS sites are dead simple. Converting existing sites is typically very fast, too, taking 10-15 minutes for a basic template port thanks to our Template Variables (see below) and some helpful and free code Snippets.
* Unlimited hierarchy -- it never made sense to me that you can't build sites as deeply-nested as you want in some system. MODx has no such restrictions.
* QuickEdit front end editing -- log into the manger, surf your site, and click the edit buttons that appear when you want to make changes.
* Template Variables (TVs) -- you can have as many custom content fields as you want for your site with TVs. They can also have "widgets" attached to them to create things more easily like data grids, select boxes,  pop-up lists and so on. (even questionable things like scrolling marquees as well...). This allows developers to turn complex content scenarios into a simple process of filling out an online form for content editors.
* @bindings -- this the USP for MODx, and most powerful aspect of the system. It allows you to bind virtually anything as the input source or the default value to TVs. Can be a logic evaluation, an API call, a flat file uploaded to a specific directory on your web server that's then parsed into a data grid, an RSS feed,  a file listing in a directory, or pretty much anything you can dream up... combined with the output transformation widgets this is really powerful.

People also talk a lot about the community. I've been a part of other projects that are run by prima dona control freaks that typically wind up with failing communities, or major bad blood -- just not pleasant places to participate. I try to keep the MODx community and actively solicit feedback and outside contribution; there's no not-invented-here syndrome at MODx ... the "community vibe" is pleasantly different according to virtually every person that's migrated from other projects.


The Unblog/Anti-YAPS Paradigm Shift Blogs are big these days. The way I see it, a blog is just another bit of content, usually with commenting attached to the end. It could just as easily be a series of press releases, articles, software downloads, FAQ questions, songs, podcasts or ... you get the point. The problem I perceive with so many systems is that while they're typically pretty good blogging platforms, you're stuck with a certain "look" and you're basically screwed if you want to deviate much from a blog-site functionality unless you want to start patching and hacking away.

MODx's "unblog" tool (currently known as NewsListing) is simply a tool that summarizes/serializes other pages on the site. Our comment tool is another little "snippet" of code, that appends the comments as a child page of the original article.

Similarly, the whole YAPS syndrome is out of control. Again, most CMSes I've run into I refer to as Yet Another Portal System. Wonderful for your local Quake clan (or whatever the FPS-of-them-moment is), but have fun sorting out a site that doesn't fit into their blocks/channels/"insert lingo here"/whatever paradigm.

I'm not the only one that finds these things and more questionable; Jeff Veen does a better job of going over the not-so-subtle-nuances of what's broken with so many Open Source CMSes. Are they all fixed in MODx? Heck no, but they're all on the radar and under the knife so to speak.

MODx gives you total freedom to build sites like you want, and there's typically 3-4 ways to get to the same end result. It's about total flexibility and bucking conventional patterns of website management software.


Example Sites Some notable example sites, none of which poses a particular "MODx look" as there just isn't one :

Music, media and tech:

* http://www.thesoundsinmyhead.com/ -- Weekly Podcast site featuring "songs and bands you might have missed".
* http://www.swellguys.co.za/ -- Online surfing magazine and community.
* http://kuzkray.sovintel.ru/ --  Russian newspaper site.
* http://www.bittersweetembrace.com/ -- Punk/Alternative music news and reviews.
* http://www.pikkitux.com/ -- French site about linux, ubuntu, free software, webcreation ...

Sports & Politics:

* http://dhbblog.zendezentrale.com/ -- Official European Championship Microsite for the German Handball Federation.
* http://www.quebecsolidaire.net/ -- A new political party in the province of Québec.

Institutions & Organizations:

* http://www.bryan.edu/ -- 2,168 pages, 108 manager users and 196 web users authenticating to the school's IMAP server. Custom Forms Module that handled more than 840 submissions its first 2 months. Custom Newsletter Module with over 2000 subscribers.
* http://www.vet.ohio-state.edu/ -- 1875 pages for the Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine with custom student intranet for roughly 150 Seniors authenticating to shibboleth.
* http://www.ifagesundheit.de/index.html -- German therapy hospital.
* http://www.bwhw.de/ -- German educational site.
* http://girl33.com/ -- Helping women escape the Thai industry.

Goods & Real Estate:

* http://toglobalperks.com/travel-benefits.html -- Overseas travel membership club.
* http://Hunder.ca/ -- Canadian clothing company.
* http://landplan.net/ -- Master community land developer.
* http://www.prescottrealtygroup.com/ -- Real estate developer with private executive dashboard.

Services, Bits & Bytes:

* http://www.michelez-notaires.com/ -- French law firm.
* http://www.aladna.nl/ -- Translation company site in 4 languages.
* http://greymatterhosting.com/ -- Web hosting.

Selected Quotes Heard around the web:

Excellent software. I have been able to do more in just 10 minutes with Modx then I did in several hours with any of about a half dozen other CMS's I've tested. I'm HTML savvy, CSS average, and a php beginner, but Modx makes it easy to create a totally custom page using my html and css skills and then add content as needed. Loving it! -- Jeffery

sweet...php--oo--ajax ooo la la. -- Gregg from Romulus Design Group

Sound different enough for you to say goodbye?

What's there to add after such an eloquent piece ?

Just one more testimony that MODx won't disappoint you, it's different alright !
If it was not already taken, I would say : "Think Different, Think MODx !"

Seems i've finally got into the right place .... Well ok after all these encouraging words i must give a try with MODx and will be back soon as either MODx GURU or ... MODx GURU

Thanks for replies !

Quote from: PHP at Apr 12, 2006, 12:29 AM

Hello,

This is my first post at these nice forums ... well firstly .. I'm a PHP Programmer for about 3 years, recently I've entered the world of CMS .. as before I was developing my projects & client's too using my own codes (Scratch codes ) ... then with no-doubt Mambo/Joomla was my first choice as its massive support for extensions, modules etc ... when I began using Joomla .. I was very shocked to find something like that and guess what .. its free & opensource too .... after days and weeks searching, reading ...etc in joomla world ... and at the first time I'm going to build my application ... I was shocked again .. but it was a different shock!! it take me a longer time than my old way (build from scratch) to build it as I want .. I didn't believe and got more deep in .. how is that ?? its joomla .. scalable .. finally i [glow=red,2,300]found that joomla was the wrong choice[/glow] .. in short sentence i can say ... "Joomla put you in one way to go ".. [glow=red,2,300]its not open to your needs ... but your needs should be open to its rules[/glow] !!

And after deep thinking about joomla and its being free ... I've found that most of important components/modules are [glow=red,2,300]Commercial[/glow] .. yes .. this is how they do it !! .. using just joomla isn't more using normal organized application ... but to make it powerful you have to get the commercials !! whatever it was components, modules or templates ! ...

And guess what .. Joomla wasn't a piece of cake to learn ...

and now I've came up to an end which is to seek another CMS or go back to my old and own rules and build my applications from scratch ...

I hope someone can give a positive answer telling MODx is different and I could really depend on for my projects .. as i really not ready to waste time again .. sorry to say that ... but I've wasted it once ... and afraid to waste it again
Sorry for long post ...

and Thanks .

Hey PHP Player!

Most of us have had the same experience as you at some time or another, given that we all consider modX a "lucky" find I'm sure you won't be disappointed either. It's just not the same as joomla which is both an accident, and an entry level turnkey cms for people who for most part make sites as a hobby.

Play with it a bit - it shouldn't take you long to realize modX and joomla/mambo are worlds apart.

Welcome to modX

Quote from: PHP at Apr 12, 2006, 02:50 AM

Seems i've finally got into the right place .... Well ok after all these encouraging words i must give a try with MODx and will be back soon as either MODx GURU or ... MODx GURU

Thanks for replies !

I'm looking forward to that. The more MODx guru we have, the more we can speed up the development process.

Welcome to the community.

PS: Ryan, that's a really nice summary. Any plan to blog that thing and put it on the frontpage?

That's definitely a draft of a blog post I'm working on ... lol.

Hi Everyone,
Sorry for hijacking this thread. I'm also looking to evaluate Modx for a couple of upcoming projects. I currently use Joomla for CMS-based projects, and while the sites run fine and did everything I wanted to do, I was a bit disillusioned how much code was required to do fairly simple tasks. And don't even get me started on the complexity of clean url's (ie SEO friendly url's).

Anyway, there seems be a vibrant community here! So please excuse my questions.

1. How does Modx handle template/page caching? Is this fairly straightforward and robust?
2. As it is a framework, may I assume it is relatively easy to implement or change the way content is created? A poster above mentioned being able to create more than one content type. But what if I want to create a content type that was a feed? Or an external php script? Or raw xml spit out by a db? Could these types all sit within the modx framework?
3. Does anyone have an experience in comparing this framework, to Ruby On Rails? The both seem to be well suited for Web 2.0 applications. Has anyone tried both?

Thanks in advance. Sorry again for hijacking the thread.

Geoffrey

1. How does Modx handle template/page caching? Is this fairly straightforward and robust?

Pretty well, actually. It's not the ultimate solution (that's for 1.0... ) but it's really pretty much right.

2. As it is a framework, may I assume it is relatively easy to implement or change the way content is created? A poster above mentioned being able to create more than one content type. But what if I want to create a content type that was a feed? Or an external php script? Or raw xml spit out by a db? Could these types all sit within the modx framework?

Adding custom content types including disposition method (i.e. download or a page to output) is as simple as adding it to a form in the manger. Everything you ask is in it's current capability set.

3. Does anyone have an experience in comparing this framework, to Ruby On Rails? The both seem to be well suited for Web 2.0 applications. Has anyone tried both?

RoR is a killer application, but is either a crusher when it comes to memory usage or SQL usage. Even simple seeming things can kill a server if it's not dedicated to the application. In addition, RoR is much more complex really than MODx if you're not accustomed to programming in Ruby ... you've got to go through build sessions and so forth. Admittedly, it's not a difficult thing to pick up and ActiveRecord makes complex things easy to accomplish. It's very powerful. But the reality is that they're like comparing apples and oranges right now.

MODx 1.0 and RoR will be appropriate and similar comparisons.